More Impact October 29, 2010 : 12:00 PM

“What we've seen there is a bleaching event that was caused by hot water, back in May, and what we've documented is about 80 per cent of the Acropora which is typically the most predominant coral species - staghorn corals - about 80 per cent of those colonies are dead.”

“There's a cyclic event in the Indian Ocean called the Indian Ocean Dipole, which is similar to El Nino events, and warm water pools in the west of the Indian Ocean. So this is a natural cyclic event but almost certainly, you know, human induced climate change is increasing the intensity of that event.”